A Damsel in Distress

by P. G. Wodehouse

Depression returned. It was impossible to fight against it in this beast of a barn. The place was like a sepulchre. No one but a fool of a butler would have suggested it as a trysting-place. He wondered irritably why places like this were allowed to get into this condition. If people wanted a barn earnestly enough to take the trouble of building one, why was it not worth while to keep the thing in proper repair? Waste and futility! That was what it was. That was what everything was, if you came down to it. Sitting here, for instance, was a futile waste of time. She wouldn't come. There were a dozen reasons why she should not come. So what was the use of his courting rheumatism by waiting in this morgue of dead agricultural ambitions? None whatever—George went on waiting.

And what an awful place to expect her to come to, if by some miracle she did come—where she would be stifled by the smell of mouldy hay, damped by raindrops and—reflected George gloomily as there was another scurry and scutter along the unseen floor—gnawed by rats. You could not expect a delicately-nurtured girl, accustomed to all the comforts of a home, to be bright and sunny with a platoon of rats crawling all over her. . . .

The grey oblong that was the doorway suddenly darkened.

"Mr. Bevan!"

George sprang up. At the sound of her voice every nerve in his body danced in mad exhilaration. He was another man. Depression fell from him like a garment. He perceived that he had misjudged all sorts of things. The evening, for instance, was a splendid evening—not one of those awful dry, baking evenings which make you feel you can't breathe, but pleasantly moist and full of a delightfully musical patter of rain. And the barn! He had been all wrong about the barn. It was a great little place, comfortable, airy, and cheerful. What could be more invigorating than that smell of hay? Even the rats, he felt, must be pretty decent rats, when you came to know them.

"I'm here!"

Maud advanced quickly. His eyes had grown accustomed to the murk, and he could see her dimly. The smell of her damp raincoat came to him like a breath of ozone. He could even see her eyes shining in the darkness, so close was she to him.

"I hope you've not been waiting long?"

George's heart was thundering against his ribs. He could scarcely speak. He contrived to emit a No.

"I didn't think at first I could get away. I had to . . ." She broke off with a cry. The rat, fond of exercise like all rats, had made another of its excitable sprints across the floor.